NV wildlife officials kill 2-year-old male bear at Tahoe

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INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — Nevada wildlife officials killed a two-year-old black bear Monday at Lake Tahoe after it was determined to be a danger to humans.

The male bear broke into an Incline Village house on Friday and Sunday nights, according to a Nevada Department of Wildlife press release, and was apparently preparing to break into the same home when it was tranquilized by a department game warden.

It also was observed Monday trying to break into a locked truck; initial attempts to scare it away were unsuccessful, according to NDOW.

“The bear was described as ‘fearless’ by the NDOW game warden at the scene,” said Chris Healy, NDOW public information officer, in a Tuesday statement.

During the same incident, another bear in the area was trapped, Healy said. The yearling female was released Tuesday afternoon in an area southeast of Gardnerville.

Where exactly in Incline Village — which is located on Lake Tahoe’s North Shore — the bears were caught was not immediately clear.

The male bear that was killed had been handled once before as a nuisance bear near Dayton in early October, according to NDOW. It was fitted with an ear tag and released south of Dayton in the Pine Nut Mountains. Three days later, it was seen in the Incline Village area.

NDOW wardens have caught 15 bears in the month of October, fourteen of which were released using aversion conditioning techniques.

Three of the bears were released Tuesday into the mountains above Spooner Lake. An NDOW warden caught the female and her two cubs overnight Sunday in the Juniper Ridge area off Mayberry Drive in Reno.

The female had been caught in west Reno under similar circumstances in 2007, said NDOW biologist Carl Lackey.

“She weighed about 200 pounds, just what a wild land female should weigh,” Lackey said in a statement. “The two cubs, one male and one female, weighed about 50 pounds apiece. The three of them are perfect candidates for aversion conditioning.”

The female was also caught as part of a wildland black bear research project in 2010 in Little Valley, above Washoe Valley in the Carson Range.

“The Carson Range is the female’s home range, and the fact that we have caught her before in Little Valley makes a backcountry release above Spooner Lake a perfect place for her and the cubs,” Lackey said. “They have a good chance to remain wild when we release them.”

Bears are still in the physiological state of “hyperphagia,” Lackey said, in which their intake of food can increase from 3,000 calories a day to as many as 25,000 calories per day.

“Their one and only job is eating this time of year, and they are very good at it,” he said.

Sierra Nevada black bears usually go into hibernation between Thanksgiving and Christmas as food sources become harder to find.

For information on living with bears, visit www.ndow.org and find the ”Bear Logic” page.